We Can't escape the SMOKE from this one.

With the "Project for a New American Century" there must be equal Power among KINGS.

Today I wonder, with Mr. Cheney out from his Cave in Wyoming.

With "Outsourcing" changed to "Insourcing. Will Usama Bin Laden come out from his Cave in Afghanistan to bid for the New CEO of "All the Ships at Sea" arriving in US Ports?

Who will succeed? Cave Dweller or the Two Kings of "what's in it for me?"

Good Quarters in a shipping crate, quiet too.

Certainly beats that Texas/Mexico crossing which our National Guard from Maine to California has abandoned to secure Iraqi Boarders.

GREAT GERTRUDE "TWO KINGS and a Parcel of JOKERS" as:

the "MOST WANTED" of the Empire", by electronic vote!

Sub sole sub umbra virens

Sidney Blumenthal knows that Cheney is president; now we all know it; others know it too, including Congress -- and we're all going to sit here and let it happen? No one is going to do something about it? Newspaper editors, senators, congresspeople, citizens, college kids, are all going to be ruled by Cheney, certainly one of the most evil people who has ever lived? Here's what COULD happen as a result of this information: night and day-long protests arranged all around the country, including the White House, or as close to it as allowed. Letters to the Editors, en masse. Visits to Senators and Congresspeople by delegations of citizens concerned with all the liberties to our Constitution this corrupt Administration has taken. Protests at college campuses around the nation. Traffic-stopping, and business-stopping parades. I hate what is happening to our country, our constitution, our Supreme Court and our voting machines (made and controlled by a friend of Bush's). Can't we all DO something?

Sandy Aptecker

Change is often an illusion, and countries set their course early in their development. If you read Bierce and Twain, among others, you can see that the US was almost the same in their time as it is now in its power structures and populist tendencies. The difference is the evolution of that power, the way in which business and government and religion have melded and merged to create a totalitarian state. "Democracy" in your country has always been about individualism, nothing more, nothing on a universal level, although certain trends have misled us into thinking otherwise from time to time. Roosevelt was only a barrier to this totalitarian state; his era was an anomaly, just as the 1960s social upheaval was. From an outside POV, it seems clear that your future is set in its overall mold. Having broken all checks and safeguards, the government has overthrown itself, and it will decline swiftly (though that still means several generations, no doubt). Having achieved victory, the barons and princes will find out that it is only defeat. The money is all in the hands of individuals or corporations now, not the treasury, and the deficit is unerasable, and natural resources have largely been decimated. States will have to assume power over themselves and become semi-independent countries. The task of rebuilding will fall to local communities. Hope is in you and your family and your friends: has there ever been another possibility, anyway?

Does The Vice President Have The Unilateral Authority To Declassify Information?

In his interview with Brit Hume on Fox News about the Texas hunting accident, Vice President Cheney indicated he had the authority under a 2003 Presidential Executive Order to declassify information independently by virtue of his position as Vice President. The Vice President engaged in this exchange with Brit Hume on the release of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction:

"Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify information?" Hume asked.

"There is an executive order to that effect," Cheney said.

"There is?"

"Yes."

"Have you done it?"

"Well, I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions.”

Vice President Cheney seemed at first to assert he had the authority unilaterally to declassify information, but then seemed to hedge by saying he had “advocated” declassification and had “participated in declassification decisions,” suggesting he did not make such decisions independently and unilaterally. Does an “incumbent Vice President” (the term used in the Executive Order, No. 13292) have the unilateral authority to declassify information?

It seems clear that the Vice President, as well as, of course, the President, and a number of other officials, such as agency heads delegated the authority by the President, has the power to classify information under section 1.3 of the Executive Order. There is a serious question, however, whether the Vice President has the authority unilaterally to declassify information that has been classified by another official acting under his or her authority delegated by the President.

Executive Order No. 13292, Part 3, “Declassification and Downgrading,” establishes who has the authority, and the procedures for, declassification of information. The Executive Order provides that “Information shall be declassified as soon as it no longer meets the standards for classification under this order.” Part 3 creates several categories of information that can or must be declassified. Information that is more than 25 years old and has permanent historical value, with certain exceptions, is automatically declassified. Each agency that has classified information also must establish a program of Systematic Declassification Review, based on the degree of researcher interest in the information and the likelihood that the information would be declassified upon review. In addition, any information specifically requested to be reviewed for declassification must, if the information meets certain criteria, be reviewed for declassification. (It is not clear who may make such a request, but the phrasing of the Mandatory Declassification Review section seems to suggest it could include members of the public.) There are several officials and bodies excepted from the requirement of Mandatory Declassification Review, including the Vice President. There is no other provision in the Executive Order for declassification of information.

Part 4 of the Executive Order provides for “Safeguarding” classified information. Among other things, it provides that “Classified information shall remain under the control of the originating agency or its successor in function. An agency shall not disclose information originally classified by another agency without its authorization.” “Agency” is an executive agency as defined in Title 5 of the United States Code, or “any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.” Section 5.5 of the Executive Order provides for Sanctions against any “officer or employee of the United States Government” who, among other things, “knowingly, willfully, or negligently . . . disclose[s] to unauthorized persons information properly classified under this order or predecessor orders.”

National Intelligence Estimates are described by the Central Intelligence Agency as:

“the most authoritative written judgment concerning a national security issue prepared by the Director of Central Intelligence. Unlike "current intelligence" products, which describe the present, most NIEs forecast future developments and many address their implications for the United States. NIEs cover a wide range of issue [sic]-from military to technological to economic to political trends. NIEs are addressed to the highest level of policymakers-up to and including the President.”

To begin with, the NIE at issue in the Vice President’s interview with Brit Hume, was, by definition, prepared by the Director of Central Intelligence and it would appear from the terms of Executive Order No. 13292, only that official has the authority to declassify it. Moreover, unless a specific request for declassification of that NIE had been made, or it came within a Systematic Declassification Review, it was not subject to declassification. (It certainly could not have been declassified automatically under the provision for declassification of documents over 25 years old.) It is unlikely this NIE came under a program of Systematic Declassification Review. If a specific request had been made for this document, under the Mandatory Declassification Review provisions of the Executive Order, review of declassification of the NIE is required to be made by “the originating agency,” that is, the CIA. Thus it would appear that the Vice President had no authority to declassify the NIE in question.